NASA to replace Russia’s Soyuz with commercial spaceships by 2017

NASA plans to give up Russia’s space travel services by 2017, switching all cargo and manned launches to missions performed by the national commercial space industry. The US has two firms successfully launching space craft, a NASA administrator said.

NASA chief, Charles Bolden, is
highly optimistic about the future of the US space industry,
particularly after the successful mission of the Cygnus cargo
spacecraft sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in
September.

“America's best days in space exploration are ahead of us,
thanks to the grit and determination of those in government and
the private sector who dare to dream big dreams and have the
skills to turn them into reality,” Bolden declared at a press
briefing streamed live on NASA’s website on Wednesday.

The current pillar stones of the American space industry are
Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corporation, which produces the
Cygnus that operates with an Antares rocket booster, and
California’s Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, with its ‘Dragon’ spacecraft
launched into orbit with a Falcon rocket booster. There are other
players who are working hard, but so far they have failed to
deliver tangible results.

The Cygnus mission marked the end of NASA's Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services (COTS) program, and seeks to develop
relationships with private companies that will bring the agency’s
payloads cost-effectively to and from the ISS, as well as into
low-Earth orbit.

“We’ve ended the
outsourcing of space station resupply work and brought those jobs
back home to America,” Charles Bolden announced.

“The commercial space industry will be an engine of 21st
century American economic growth, and will help us carry out even
more ambitious deep space exploration missions,” he said.

Gwynne Shotwell, the head of SpaceX, who also appeared at NASA
headquarters to mark the milestone moment of ending the COTS
program, spoke in favor of returning space industry jobs and
launch capabilities back to the US as soon as possible. She added
that this would also imply bigger allocations from the national
budget.

NASA’s is doing “an extraordinary amount of work” with its
current budget of about $17 billion a year, acknowledged
Shotwell.

Shotwell couldn’t help comparing the financing of the US space
industry with the money Americans spend annually on beer - about
$100 billion.

As soon as November 19, private American companies will start
their bids for a NASA contract to build a manned spacecraft to
replace the space shuttle program, closed in 2011, and put US
astronauts into orbit in American-made vessels. SpaceX and
Orbital Sciences are the favorites in the race.

SpaceX’s Falcon has signed a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to
perform 12 missions into space. In January 2014 the company will
perform its third launch under the NASA cargo contract.

Orbital Sciences has a bigger, $1.9 billion contract with NASA,
according to Orbital Sciences' vice-president, Frank Culbertson,
who also heads the company's human-spaceflight activities. The
company is preparing to make its first commercial launch in
December.

However, for the next three
years, NASA will be paying Russia’s Roscosmos space agency about $65
million for a seat, when American astronauts need to get to the
ISS. The contract with Russia that lasts till mid-2017 is NASA’s
must-not-fail deadline for American contractors.

Yet there is a different problem the US space industry might be
facing. It was reported by Russia’s Izvestia Daily in early
November that by the end of 2013 Russia’s Security Council is
going to consider a possible ban on supplying the US with
powerful RD-180 rocket engines. These are used on the US heavy
booster Atlas V. The reason is that, among other payloads, the US
military uses the Atlas booster to launch military
communications satellites and possibly elements of a future space
weapon system. Deliveries of the RD-180 to the US United Launch
Alliance have continued since 1996.

The problem is that the decision of Russia’s Security Council
might influence the work of the Orbital Sciences Corporation,
which has been battling with the United Launch Alliance since
June 2013. ULA has ‘monopolized’ the rocket engine market and
thus barred its direct rival from obtaining RD-180 engines for
its Antares rocket booster and entering a lucrative market for US
government rocket launches.

Besides that, the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket is powered by
Aerojet AJ-26 engines, which are actually Soviet NK-33 engines
produced for the super-heavy N-1 rocket booster in the USSR lunar
program. Orbital Sciences once managed to buy 43 NK-33 engines,
stored for decades in Russian space corporation depots, and then
adapted them for their needs. Now Orbital Sciences would like to
restart production of the NK-33, which begs a decision, so far
not taken, from the Russian authorities at the highest level.